1927 – 45 people die in the United States’ worst school massacre – In the Bath school disaster, a disgruntled school board member set off several bombs at the Bath Consolidated School and other locations in Michigan.
332 – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great institutes free daily bread rations in Constantinople
1096 – Crusaders massacre Jews of Worm
1152 – Henry II marries Eleanor of Aquitaine.
1268 – The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Battle of Antioch; Baibars’ destruction of the city of Antioch was so great as to permanently negate the city’s importance.
1291 – Sultan of Egypt & his son take last Christian stronghold of Acre
1302 – The weaver Peter de Coningk led a massacre of the Flemish oligarchs.
1588 – The Spanish Armada sets sail for England; it is defeated by England the following August
1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd’s accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.
1619 – Dutch jurist and scholar Hugo Grotius sentenced to life in prison in Loevestein Castle in the Netherlands (later escapes in a book chest)
1631 – English colony Massachusetts Bay grants puritarian voting right
1642 – Montreal, Canada, was founded.
1643 – Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, was granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king’s will.
1652 – In Rhode Island, a law was passed that made slavery illegal in North America. It was the first law of its kind.
1792 – Russian troops invaded Poland.
1798 – The first Secretary of the U.S. Navy was appointed. He was Benjamin Stoddert.
1802 – Great Britain declared war on Napoleon’s France.
1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed emperor by the French Senate.
1828 – Battle of Las Piedras ended the conflict between Uruguay and Brazil.
1848 – The first German National Assembly gathers in Frankfurt – The assembly constituted the first freely elected parliament of Germany. It produced a constitution that provided the basis for today’s constitution of Germany (Grundgesetz).
1852 – Massachusetts rules all school-age children must attend school
1869 – The Public Credit Act is passed by Ulysses S. Grant, one of his first actions as President of the United States. The Act endorsed the payment of the national debt after the American Civil War in gold currency instead of greenbacks
1896 – The U.S. Supreme court upheld the “separate but equal” policy in the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. The ruling was overturned 58 years later with Brown vs. Board of Education.
1897 – A public reading of Bram Stoker’s new novel, “Dracula, or, The Un-dead,” was performed in London.
1904 – Brigand Raizuli kidnapped American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.
1906 – “The Federated Boys’ Clubs, later to become the Boys’ Clubs of America, are organized
1917 – The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service act, which called up soldiers to fight in World War I.
1918 – TNT explosion in chemical factory in Oakdale PA kills 200
1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, CA. She reappeared a month later with the claim that she had been kidnapped.
1927 – The Bath School Disaster: Forty-five people are killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan.
1931 – Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.
1933 – Around 5,000 forced deportees in the Soviet Union arrive on Nazino Island; within thirteen weeks most of them will be dead due to disease, cannibalism and violence.
1934 – The U.S. Congress approved an act, known as the “Lindberg Act,” that called for the death penalty in interstate kidnapping cases.
1941 – Italian army in Ethiopia under general Aosta surrenders to Britain
1942 – New York ended night baseball games for the duration of World War II.
1944 – Monte Cassino, Europe’s oldest Monastic house, was finally captured by the Allies in Italy.
1951 – The United Nations moved its headquarters to New York City.
1953 – The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.
1964 – Supreme Court rules unconstitutional to deprive naturalized citizens of citizenship if they return to home country for more than 3 years
1967 – Tennessee Governor Ellington approves repeal of the Butler Act (or “Monkey Law”) – prohibiting the teaching of evolution, upheld in 1925 Scopes Trial
1971 – President Nixon rejects the 60 demands of Congressional Black Caucus
1974 – Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so
1977 – US, USSR and other nations sign the Environmental Modification Convention which prohibits weather warfare having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects
1980 – Mt. Saint Helens erupted in Washington state. 57 people were killed and 3 billion in damage was done.
1983 – The U.S. Senate revised immigration laws and gave millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program.
1986 – South African army occupies Botswana, Zimbabwe & Zambia
1991 – Northern Somalia declares independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland however it is unrecognised by the international community.
1992 – The Archivist of the United States issues a proclamation to officially announce that the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been ratified, despite more than 200 years for completion of the ratification process by the state legislatures
1994 – Israel’s three decades of occupation in the Gaza Strip ended as Israeli troops completed their withdrawal and Palestinian authorities took over.
1998 – The U.S. federal government and 20 states filed a sweeping antitrust case against Microsoft Corp., saying the computer software company had a “choke hold” on competitors which denied consumer choices by controlling 90% of the software market.
2001 – Saudi Arabia selects the eight foreign companies to take part in its “Gas Initiative,” three core venture gas projects that have an anticipated worth of $25 billion
2006 – The post Loktantra Andolan government passes a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country.
2009 – The Sri Lankan Civil War ends – The 25-year conflict between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers had claimed up to 100,000 lives. It ended with the Tigers’ defeat.
2014 – Russian President Putin signed a bill to absorb Crimea into the Russian Federation.
2018 – All of Chile’s 34 Roman Catholic bishops offer their resignation to Pope Francis in wake of child sex scandal
2020 – US President Donald Trump confirms he is taking controversial drug hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19
2022 – Amid a nationwide US baby formula shortage, President Joe Biden invokes the Defense Production Act, requiring suppliers to fulfil orders to baby formula manufacturers first
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
